


Years That Were Erased

by arrafrost



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Deadpool (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Flashbacks, M/M, MRT, Marvel Red Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:50:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrafrost/pseuds/arrafrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter recounts the years that led up to Gwen’s death. She was the best friend that Peter ever had, she was there for everything and even helped him meet his two boyfriends. Now she's dead and he blames himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Years That Were Erased

**Author's Note:**

> It’s slightly alternate universe, Wade is attending the same high school as Gwen and Peter while Matt is in university. They're all still have superpowers though.

Peter wished he was numb. He wished he couldn’t feel anything but the deep, penetrating cold of the evening chill. That wasn’t how things worked, however. Despite how much Peter wanted to forget everything; everything he was, everything he did, and everything he represented… he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do any of it.

The image replayed itself in Peter’s mind on repeat. Once it played all the way through, it rewound and Peter had to watch it zoom by backwards in his mind. It gave him a false sense of hope that things were being reversed. It had never happened. None of it. It was fixing itself and going back to the way it should have been. But whenever he thought that maybe it was all okay again, the tape stopped rewinding and it played through once more, in the correct, devastating order of events.

Worst of all, Peter hadn’t been helpless. He hadn’t sat back and watched it happen. He had been involved… actively involved in the murder of his best friend, Gwen Stacy.

.

.

Peter lay on his back, arms behind his head to cushion his skull, in the old tree house behind his aunt’s house. His eyes were stuck on the ceiling but he could feel everything memory in the wood pulsing, the collection of records, the drawings and carvings on the walls, the posters, everything that made his heart tighten.

“ _Hey Pete!” The sweet lull of the most charming voice Peter had ever heard called up from the ladder to his left._

_He glanced over from where he lay to see the golden hair of his best friend and perpetual crush, Gwen Stacy. She was gorgeous, with eyes that he could stare into for the rest of his life. He could imagine their children, the house they would buy together, and the small fights they’d have over the remote or who got which side of the sink in the bathroom, who got the majority of space in the closet and who got the first drawer of the dresser. He could see everything that was going to happen and he was sure of it all. He may have only been twelve years old, but that was his future, a future with Gwen Stacy… even if he hadn’t gotten up the courage to tell her those three simple yet big words._

“ _Hi Gwen, come on up! You’ll never believe what Uncle Ben got me!” Peter quickly sat up as Gwen pulled herself up into the tree house, crawling over to where Peter was pulling at the shelf of their mutually collected records._

_He pulled out the record and proudly handed it over to Gwen, he couldn’t explain the way his heart sped up when her eyes lit up._

“ _Carnival!” Her smile was wide and bright when she turned to Peter. It was one of her favorite Broadway musicals and Peter had been searching everywhere for it – he had been saving up his allowance to be able to afford it, if he ever happened upon it. Thankfully Uncle Ben had overheard a conversation Peter was having with Aunt May about the musical and he brought it home one day, said that he found it at a yard sale._

_Peter had never heard or seen the musical, he did enjoy some musicals but it was only something he loved because Gwen loved it. Because when Gwen talked about Broadway musicals, the passion she had for them, the excitement and the desire to make other people see the beauty in them, made Peter want to listen to her talk about them for the rest of their lives together._

_Peter hoped Gwen felt the same way when Peter rambled on about photography; the difference in lighting, frame, and development. She listened attentively and always asked questions, just as Peter did with the musicals, which made him think she had the same felt the same way he did._

_It was the same when they both talked about science. Their shared bond in experimentation and research and learning everything they could about science was unique. The moment they discovered something new, read a new article, they were emailing each other or printing it out and sharing during their evening meet ups in the tree house._

_Before Peter met Gwen, he was constantly bullied because of his love for science and knowledge. Other kids wanted to play sports and waste time in Math class, so Peter kept quiet about it. But after Peter moved in with his aunt and uncle and met Gwen Stacy, everything changed and he wasn’t ashamed of it._

_Gwen Stacy had been his best friend for four years and he was hopelessly in love with her._

Peter laughed bitterly as he thumbed through the old vinyl records that were utterly useless to him. Neither had a working phonograph, gramophone, whatever you wanted to call it. They sat there and collected dust but they had the hope that one day they’d buy a phonograph together and be able to play all the records.

That day never came. It would never come.

_The tree house took a back seat to their interactions when high school started. So did Peter’s feelings for Gwen that were still going strong at the age of fifteen, when she started dating Flash Thompson._

“ _You’re dating the biggest bully in the school? Really Gwen,” Peter was flabbergasted. How many times had Flash ruthlessly shoved him against a wall and stolen lunch money from him? “Not to mention, he’s a cliché school bully. That’s the worst kind!”_

_Gwen shrugged Peter’s protests off as they headed to their regular table in the cafeteria. “There’s a different side to him, Peter. It’s hard to see but deep down, he’s a nice guy.”_

“ _And deep down I’m a sumo wrestler who’s running to be Pope, come on Gwen!” Peter resisted the urge to slam his tray down on the table because that would be immature. That would be something Flash would do out of frustration because his weekly nerd didn’t do his homework for him and he was going to have to beat the kid up after school, although he liked the last part, the man couldn’t still be irritated about his F in Geography couldn’t he? Of course he could…_

“ _Peter, enough. I like Flash and he likes me and he treats me well. You should be happy for me.” Gwen sat down across from Peter and with a smirk she kicked him gently in the shin. “Don’t worry I’ve already told him lunch time is our time, and he’s not jealous in the slightest.”_

_Peter grinned. “Oh he’s totally jealous.”_

“ _Like you wouldn’t believe.”_

_Gwen’s promise faded gradually but not because of Flash. She was the head of their class with Peter close behind and she got an internship working at Oscorp, which was brilliant for her. She was amazing in everything to do with science but that meant she had more work on her plate than usual and lunch times were a consistent part of Gwen’s study breaks in the library._

_Peter was left on his own to eat lunch because he and Gwen had been so close and inseparable that forgot to bother making other friends. Once Flash tried to sit with Peter to keep him company, and Peter suspected he was also trying to keep himself company with the loss of Gwen as well – since her internship meant less dating time – the next best thing was to sit awkwardly across the table from her best friend while munching thoughtfully on a burger._

_After the hour of silence, it never happened again. Even if for the next three lunches Peter found himself misses the solid presence of someone at the table with him._

_That’s how Peter met Wade Wilson. This loud mouth boy with blond hair marched right over to Peter’s table and sat down across from him._

“ _Okay frowny, I’m sick of you making my lunch times miserable. You’re too pretty to be eating alone and it’s just depressing how you push those peas – are those even peas? - around with your fork all the time – seriously you need some variety in the food you get every day because that, too, is depressing as balls.”_

_Peter stared at him, blinked, and then resumed pushing the peas – squinting at them to make sure they really were a vegetable – with his fork. Immediately the blond kid snatched the fork from Peter’s hand and threw it across the cafeteria. Vaguely Peter thought he heard a yelp of pain but he didn’t pay any attention to it because he was too busy poking his food with his finger – and maybe if it was to watch Wade’s eye twitch a little at Peter’s lack of response… he couldn’t be blamed. All things considered, he was kind of cute when he was angry – which was a new thought entirely for Peter._

“ _Seriously, I’m getting you some jell-o, and you’re gonna eat it, and you’re never getting peas again.”_

_Sure enough, the next day at lunch, Peter went to put some peas onto his plate only to find his wrist in someone else’s hand._

“ _No peas!” Wade insisted, forcing Peter to drop the scoop back into the mound of circular green orbs that looked suspiciously less like peas the more Peter stared at them._

_So began the daily interruptions to Peter’s lunch that he welcomed with a smile. Wade sat across from him, loud and obnoxiously talking himself up as the most kickass person in all of history. As the weeks went by, Wade had a knack for finding Peter in the halls, walking with him to class and mouthing off at Peter’s locker about the fact that his History teacher didn’t understand how utterly dull history was._

_Every time he saw Wade’s face, his day became that much brighter. He anticipated seeing him and if Wade happened to skip a day of classes – which he did every now and then – Peter found himself coming home gloomy and frowned at the homework he had to do rather than racing through it like he normally did. He liked homework, which was something Wade teased him about constantly. But without Wade around to mock him playfully and push him around and wrap his arm around Peter’s shoulders when he gave him Wade Wilson’s patented words of wisdom…_

“ _I think I’m in love with Wade.” Peter said nonchalantly, completely out of the blue, in the middle of one of Gwen’s many monologues about Oscorp that Peter had become less inclined to listen to in such vivid detail as he used to. The weekends were the times when Peter normally got to see her, and it was in their tree house that made everything fall back into place._

“ _Huh wha-?” Gwen shook her head, trying to process what Peter had confessed when she was knee deep in the new and fascinating things she was learning because this was certainly a new discovery that could be called fascinating… but it could also be considered the weirdest thing Peter had ever said to her._

“ _I like him… a lot. Kind of want to kiss him.” Peter continued on, not at all fazed by his own declaration in the slightest. It all seemed to make sense. The feelings he had for him. It wasn’t the same as the feelings he used to have for Gwen, they were different… they didn’t hold a future with kids and a yard, but they did have some rather erotic moments that Peter blushed at whenever Wade was a little too invasive of Peter’s personal space. They were thoughts of being with him in the present and it was a nice feeling._

“ _Well…” Gwen coughed, completely blind-sided. “I’ve seen you guys together around school. You’d make a good couple as long as, you know, he treats you right and- are you sure Peter?” Gwen tried and failed to be instantly supportive of the idea. “This is Wade freaking Wilson. He puts cheery bombs in the bathrooms, he skips school, he’s always playing with fire, he mouths off to the teachers, he’s been in high school for two years longer than you should, and he’s lucky if he has a D average.”_

“ _And what’s Flash’s average?”_

“ _A ‘C+’ to a ‘B-’ if you must know, he needs to keep up his grades to stay on the team but that has nothing to do with you and Wade.”_

“ _I didn’t agree to you dating Flash at the beginning – still questioning it to be honest – but I like Wade and if I want to tell him that I like him then…”_

“ _Then… I’ll be supportive of you and your delinquent boyfriend.” Gwen finished the sentence begrudgingly. “But seriously Peter… he is kind of hot.”_

_Peter laughed and pushed Gwen gently by her shoulder. “Yeah Flash isn’t half bad either for some dumb jock.”_

“ _Oh Parker ‘I’m-in-love-with-a-bad-boy’ don’t even!” Gwen shoved Peter back and they spent the next hour playfully arguing about whose man was more attractive._

It was a fond memory despite how sad it seemed. It was when Peter’s dreams of that beautiful family with Gwen Stacy sadly came to an end. Even if it did mean having a wonderfully chaotic relationship with one Wade Wilson who was… still the most ridiculous person Peter knew. It was tough, dating someone like Wade, who jumped on Peter the moment he started blushing and telling Wade that he thought it would be cool if they started dating or something… Wade was on board and Peter had never been so relieved, albeit entirely embarrassed when Wade gently pushed him against the locker and kissed him. That kiss made his knees weak, and caused their classmates to cat-call as they walked past.

It was a good relationship, despite its flaws. It was when Wade dropped out of high school and joined the military that jeopardized their relationship. Joining the military was something Wade wanted to do, and no amount of begging or yelling on Peter’s end would change his mind. He went away around sometime before Peter turned sixteen with the promise to write and “ _You better not lose your virginity before I get back, but it’s cool if you date other people, as long as I can get in on the action when I get back.”_ Peter wasn’t sure how to take that because he didn’t want to date anyone other than Wade.

The week after Wade left, Gwen was around more often. She sat with him at lunch and tried to take his mind off things and she even stopped by after work most weekdays to sit with him in the tree house like they used to. This was the time Gwen brought over some darts and they carved a target board into one of the walls.

Peter traced the crudely carved lines with his fingertips, remembering how upset he’d been with Wade for leaving like he had. He would only learn the truth after Wade returned… changed and broken… but still the cocky asshole he’d always been.

But before that, Peter found himself in an odd relationship with a law student named Matt. He was all the things Gwen said Peter should be dating. Mature, intelligent, handsome, and responsible. While Peter knew that he would always have feelings for Wade, and wanted to wait for him, he just couldn’t help but pine after this Matt character.

“ _Just imagine how much more tender it would be with him.” Gwen pressed one day when they were throwing darts in the tree house. She hadn’t met Matt by this point but Peter had been talking about him for… quite a sometime now._

“ _What do you mean?”_

“ _Well, he’s more tactile than most people. He’d be slow, take him time in learning your body-”_

“ _God Gwen, I’m not gonna have sex with him!” Peter flushed, nearly dropping the dart he was about to toss._

_Gwen’s laughter at his expense was of no comfort. “I know, I know. You’re saving yourself for your delinquent military boyfriend.”_

“ _And you’ve already given it up to C-average dumb jock.”_

“ _Do you want to become the target, Parker?” Gwen warned, threatening the dart in his direction before tossing it at the wall. “I’m serious though. Wade told me that if you met someone you liked you should go for it. He’s all for open relationships and I think you and this guy – seriously I want a name soon Parker – would be great together. From what you’ve said you’ve got some good chemistry and I know you’re always busy now but you could make some time to ask him out for coffee.”_

_Which is what Peter did… on the roof of a twenty story building… when both of them were dressed in full spandex suits._

“ _A date? Really Web-head? Don’t you have a curfew?” Daredevil chuckled but there was no hostility in his voice, only intrigue._

“ _I’m sixteen, Horn-head.” Peter protested before adding in a soft voice, “and my curfew isn’t until eleven.”_

“ _Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” Daredevil shrugged and proceeded to set the date for a local coffee shop around noon the next day._

“ _How will I know it’s you?”_

“ _Look for red glasses and hair, shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”_

It hadn’t been either. Gwen ate it up when he told her about the date and she nearly scolded Peter for telling Matt on the first date that he had a boyfriend but was in an open relationship while Wade was away. Peter argued that he wanted to be completely honest and if Matt didn’t accept that, and then there would be no reason to date him. That was something Gwen couldn’t argue against and thankfully, neither had Matt. He was fine with the idea and proceeded to ask Peter about his boyfriend, hoping to meet him.

It was a month before Matt kissed him. They were sitting in Matt’s apartment, Peter tucked into the crook of Matt’s arm as they watched some movie that Peter couldn’t be bothered to remember because when Matt turned to him and pressed his lips, soft and slow, against Peter’s mouth… the movie faded away. The leisurely kisses took precedence and neither tried to rush them, they took their time and it was incredible.

Peter wrote Wade about it the next day. They had been sending letters back and forth since Wade left, although Peter found himself writing to Wade more often than Wade wrote back. When Peter first brought up Matt, Wade wanted to know all the details, everything about him, especially what he looked like. It made Wade all the more excited to come home and visit. The weirdest thing was how natural it all felt to Peter. The idea of a polyamorous relationship hadn’t been on the forefront of Peter’s mind but it all fell into place and he wanted nothing more than for the two men to meet, hoping they’d hit it off and not make Peter chose between them.

Things were going great until, almost a year after Wade left; he stopped responding to Peter’s letters. There was no word from him and even Matt was helping him try to get in contact with him. The military refused to give any details regarding Wade Wilson and Matt grew suspicious, trying to find any law that would make them divulge the information. Apparently only family had the rights. Wade’s family was gone. His mother died when he was young and his father had left long before that.

Gwen and Matt were the only things keeping Peter together and focused on his studies and saving Manhattan. He and Gwen were in their senior year, applying for colleges and the weight of Wade’s disappearance grew heavy on Peter. It took the both of their constant attention to keep him from breaking down every day of the week. Somehow, whenever he did breakdown, it was Gwen who was there to hold and console him. Something about the situation made Peter hesitate to allow himself to cry in front of Matt. He wanted to be strong, wanted to show that he could continue swinging around the city at night, often by Matt’s side, and he wanted to be a good boyfriend or whatever they were… he didn’t want to be a burden.

Thank god for Gwen. Without her, Peter would have bottled his emotions until they ate through his chest and turned him into someone unrecognizable as Peter Parker. She was his rock, she was the one who always caught him when he was down, she was the best friend he ever had… and he loved her more than anything.

“ _Peter…” Gwen spoke cautiously, her voice nervous and uneven, eyes frantic and body trembling slightly._

“ _Yeah Gwen?” He narrowed his eyes in concern, leading her away from the crowd in the cafeteria before she was pulling him outside of the school entirely. “What’s up, Gwen? What happened? Are you okay?”_

“ _I… it’s not about me. I um…” Her voice was shaky but she held Peter’s eyes as she mulled over the best way to tell him – and the best way is always the blunt way. “I got a call from Wade.”_

_A stone dropped to the bottom of Peter’s stomach. He felt cold, warm, numb, alive, wanted to run and stand still at the same time. “W-what?”_

“ _Wade, he um… he called me, on my cell this morning. He wants to see you.”_

“ _Where is he?”_

“ _Peter you should wait until after scho-”_

“Where is he?”  _Peter insisted. If Wade was here, if Wade had come back after all these months of disappearing off the face of the planet, Peter needed to see him. He needed to be with him and he had to see his face._

_Gwen told him where to go. Wade would meet Peter in a cheap hotel a couple miles out of town. Peter didn’t care about anything but getting to Wade, which is why he changed into his suit in the closest alley he could find and webbed across town to get to him. He almost forgot to change back into street clothes before he knocked on the door to Wade’s hotel room. But he didn’t want to explain his entire new Spider-man vigilante job to Wade right now, it was the one thing he’d kept a secret from him during that year of letter writing. This was all about Wade and Peter, nothing to do with Spider-man._

_Peter knocked on the door, no answer. He knocked again and heard sounds coming from inside the room. Without thinking, he tried to open door. It was unlocked._

_He stepped inside and the first thought that entered his brain was, “Why is Wade dressed in an inaccurate Spider-man costume?” and that was how Peter Parker met Deadpool, Merc with a mouth,_ a man that Peter was still trying to get to know today, because there were too many sides that he still kept secret and a man that refused to take off his mask for the longest time. The conversation that followed was serious. Wade told him everything, and it was the most honest Wade had ever been with him – and he wouldn’t be that honest again until he took off his mask several months later to show Peter the full extent of what he’d been through. Cancer, Weapon-X, being tossed aside as a failed experiment, taking up the mercenary gig, killing a lot of people… the killing a lot of people was the thing Peter had the most trouble accepting.

Then Deadpool had a run in with Daredevil that Spider-man had thankfully been around to break up… and that was how their little menage a trois started.

The three of them sat down and discussed their anti-hero, hero and vigilante identities and the relationship they were going to have together. It had been a long argument/discussion that ended up with the three of them falling asleep on top of each other on Matt’s bed. Where they spent the majority of the weekend that followed… getting to know each other.

Gwen heard all the details – save for the super power related information – and she was positively giddy that Peter had two boyfriends.

“ _You’re only trying to make me jealous, show off.” Gwen teased, poking Peter in the side with her toe while they studied for the SAT’s._

“ _If you are jealous that’s not my fault and if you’re mad at me… well, I’ll just have to seek out the comfort of my two rather attractive boyfriends who fight over me constantly and- ow!” Gwen threw her text book at Peter’s arm, laughing as it fell to the floor and Peter nursed his arm – that wasn’t all that sore considering super strength but still, it was the thought that hurt._

“ _You’re a terrible friend.” She stuck her tongue out as she sat up to retrieve her text book, that Peter snatched up and waved out of her reach until they were wrestling and laughing like old times._

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had…” Peter whispered, turning the picture frame over in his hand. The picture of Peter and Gwen at graduation, her arms around his shoulder as he carried her on his back, both in their graduation gowns and hats, both holding certificates, and both smiling happily.

Wade had taken the picture with Matt standing close by. Peter had two amazing boyfriends that loved him and each other. They’d been together for three years now. Technically he’d been with Wade longer, but they counted that day in Peter’s senior year as their official anniversary day as a threesome. Even his aunt came to approve of the two of them, after quite some time only knowing them as Peter’s friends before they finally told her the truth. Aunt May was, thankfully, an open minded woman.

Gwen had even been their when they all told Aunt May about the relationship. She was the one who encouraged them to tell her that she deserved to know and who knows how it would go. “ _Aunt May loves the three of you, I’m sure she’ll be happy for you.”_ The five of them had sat down for supper, not meatloaf for once, and that’s when they told her. The only person who got any flack for not telling Aunt May sooner was Gwen. “ _Why didn’t you tell me these lovely young men were together? Kept it all to yourself. You’re supposed to be my spy in Peter’s life.”_ She had teased Gwen mercilessly throughout dinner and Gwen took it in stride, laughing and divulging other random secrets of Peter’s to please her instead.

Despite his tragedies, Peter had a good life, a fantastically dysfunctional relationship, he was a superhero and he still managed an above average grade level. Out of all that, Gwen had been the best thing to ever happen to him and he didn’t deserve her.

It had been his fault that day. When she was pushed from the roof by someone who hated  _Spider-man, Peter could have sworn his heart stopped._ If Gwen hadn’t been friends with Peter… the Green Goblin would have never taken her, never pushed her off the bridge… But it had been Spider-man, no  _Peter_ who killed her. Everything was his fault. He killed his best friend, the person who meant the most to him.

Everything was gone, erased by his web catching her leg as she fell. Gone were the Broadway musical numbers that Gwen would sing by heart as she danced around the tree house, using Peter as a dance partner when he barely knew any of the steps and none of the words. Gone were the science experiments that burned a whole in the rug that they’d bought with their combined allowances one summer because they were tired of getting splinters in their butts and feet. Gone the kiss they shared when Peter told her that he’d never kissed a girl before. It was shy and young, like many first kisses you have when you’re ten, but it was fleeting. Even the dreaming Peter did as he stared into her bright and active eyes, always flickering to a new thought before she finished the last one, always excited and passionate about anything she talked about; it had all disappeared in that moment.

She had been Peter’s first real friend, first kiss, first love, and he took her life away. She was no longer in his life, ready to tease him about his boyfriends, willing to listen to the troubles he didn’t want to unburden on Matt or Wade. She wasn’t there anymore and he blamed himself.

A shift in the weight of the tree house made him put down the picture that he’d been clinging to harder than he thought – considering the frame was slightly warped now – and peered down the ladder to find Matt and Wade standing at the base of the tree.

It was already dark.

“Peter, you’ve been up there all day. Please come down.” Matt called up when Peter was in ‘sight’. Neither Matt nor Wade had the intention to climb up into the tree house. They knew that it wasn’t their place, it was Gwen’s and Peter’s sanctuary, and if they need to they would probably wait down by the ladder until Peter finally came down.

Two weeks had passed and Peter barely talked to anyone. He had disappeared for two days after Gwen’s death and returned only to spend the majority of his time alone and brooding in his old room at Aunt May’s. It had taken the combined effort of Aunt May, Matt and Wade to get him to go to the funeral. He insisted that he didn’t deserve to be at the funeral, it wasn’t right for him to be there.

Matt and Wade gave him his distance but made sure to appear available at all times to Peter. Which meant daily visits at Aunt May’s… she must have told them where he’d been all day along.

He was here, in the place where he and Gwen spent a good portion of their lives. A place where Peter could relax and have no expectations placed upon him. Anytime Peter needed to let out emotions that he didn’t want others to see, this was where Gwen would hug him and tell him that it was all right. That is wasn’t his fault his parents left him, that he wasn’t to blame for Uncle Ben, and that it was okay that this was how he told her about his superpowers because he did his best to save everyone and sometimes, not everyone could be saved.

Peter choked on her words of comfort that she’d given him in the past and now she wasn’t here. She hadn’t come along and found him in the tree house, instinctively knowing that he needed comforting…

Instead, he climbed down to meet his boyfriends in a world beyond the sanctuary he made with Gwen. Matt touched his arm, “Peter, are you all right?”

Peter shook his head instantly, “No.” His throat was closing in on itself, his face felt hot, and he felt a weight pressing down hard on his chest. “No, I’m not…”

For the first time since Gwen died, he allowed himself to cry in the arms of his boyfriends, because it didn’t matter how or why… she was gone and Peter missed her.

**Author's Note:**

> More Marvel Red Team on my [tumblr](http://arrafrost.tumblr.com/masterpost#MRT)


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